Hasta La Ideas

pimg alt=”joy_mini_gabrielle.jpg” src=”http://www.core77.com/blog/images/joy_mini_gabrielle.jpg” width=”468″ height=”351″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pemNext month, a href=”http://www.designinquiry.net”DesignInquiry/a convenes on the Maine island of Vinalhaven to investigate the topic of JOY. Gabrielle Esperdy sheds some light on the topic./em/p

pbr /
Although Thoreau called it “the condition of life,” there is something faintly embarrassing about joy. Like sex, its necessity may exist in direct proportion to our lack of interest in discussing it. Or maybe this reticence is caused by our uncertainty about an emotion that is difficult to define. We know, for example, that joy is distinct from happiness. While happiness implies placid contentment, joy is more textured and intense, a vivid combination of exultation and delight. But this is still vague. Perhaps, then, joy is like the Supreme Court’s notorious definition of obscenity: “I know it when I see it.”/p

pThus, subjectivity comes into play when seeking a definition: one person’s joy could very well be another person’s sorrow. In describing the phenomenon of sound in 1945, Le Corbusier observed that it could be either “a conveyor of joy (music) or of oppression (racket).” Though Corbusier’s purism favored absolutes, his distinction is relative. Think of the contrast between Beethoven’s 9th and Glenn Branca’s 13th, between “the ode to joy” of woodwinds and brass and “the mighty racket” of 100 electric guitars. Le Corbusier mentions joy only in passing, in an essay on “ineffable space.” But this context is useful: one wonders if joy itself is somehow ineffable, that to speak of it is to destroy its effect./p

pBMW doesn’t think so. In a recent advertising campaign, the automaker aligns itself with joy. In video voice-overs and flash animations, it throws a long list of modifiers in joy’s general direction: timeless, freedom, innovation, aesthetic, moving, youthful, inspiring, collectible, defiant, impatient, and dynamic, concluding in gushing terms that joy is “the greatest and most human feeling of all.” If the descriptors are unsurprising, the tag line is more significant: “What you make people feel is just as important as what you make, and at BMW we don’t just make cars, we make joy.” Here, the automaker deploys joy as an emotional state that is attainable through a material product as a 1:1 connection. Drive a BMW, the ad copy implies, and experience a surge of pleasure and delight. /pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/events/driven_to_joy_by_gabrielle_esperdy_16533.asp”(more…)/a
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/jmOe7oukSabl0aWhOqhMtwmKtb0/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/jmOe7oukSabl0aWhOqhMtwmKtb0/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/jmOe7oukSabl0aWhOqhMtwmKtb0/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/jmOe7oukSabl0aWhOqhMtwmKtb0/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p